The present invention relates to a picture image composition system for generating a composite image by overlapping a plurality of groups of object images, and more particularly to a picture image composition system capable of changing a transformation or position of an arbitrary object image in a composite image.
An object image 1000 as each of object images constituting an output image 100 is supplied to an image composition system, and is stored in a memory 1 together with identification information 301. A memory 2 receives and stores scene information 2000 together with the corresponding identification information 301, the scene information 2000 which includes position data of each of object images in the output image 100 and a various kinds of transformation data such as geometrical data, light source data, color transformation data and the like, which define the various kinds of transformation operation when each object image is displayed in the output image. Here, the object image 100 and scene information 2000 are supplied to the image composition system regardless of a displayed order in the output image 100. A memory 3 stores depth information 3000 which shows a displayed order of each of the object images in the output image 100.
A depth data retriever 60 retrieves the object image and scene information from individual depth data 3001 in the depth information 3000 stored in the memory 3 to output identification data 3002 directed by the depth data 3001 to the memories 1 and 2, respectively. A scene data separator 44 separates scene data 231 supplied from the memory 2 into transformation data 241 and position data 242. After object image data 130 issued from the memory 1 are processed in an image processing unit 43 with transformation processing according to the transformation data 241, the object image data 130 are written in a frame memory 40 according to the position data 242. When all of the object image data stored in the memory 1 are written in the frame memory 40, the output image 100 is generated on the frame memory 40.
There is described operation at transforming the specified object which has been selected by a user. When the memory 2 receives target object identification information 601 for discriminating an object image selected by the user and required scene information 602 denoting a various kinds of transformation such as a position change and image processing required by the user, the image composition system rewrites a specified scene data which are included in the scene data stored in the memory 2 and are specified by the target object identification information 601, to the required scene information 602. After that, the image processing unit 43 writes all of the object image data 130 stored in the memory 1 into the frame memory 40 according to the method as the same as that described above. By this, it is possible to generate the output image which is processed by the required transformation by the user with respect to the target object specified by the target object identification information 601.
However, since the conventional image composition system writes all of the object image data constituting the output image into the frame memory after the target object image has been transformed when the user requires the transformation of the object image in the output image as described above, it is necessary to write all of the object image data into the frame memory after the same transformation is performed to individual object image constituting the target composite object image when the target object image is the composite object image in which the plurality of object images are superposed on each other. Accordingly, when the user requires to compose another image by using a n object image as a part of the output image, there is the problem that the number of processing image must be processed because all of the object images constituting the output image are necessary to be processed.